


Physick

by OneCoffeeMug



Series: FFXIV Drabbles, One Shots, and the like [1]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Battle of Carteneau (Final Fantasy XIV), Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Pre-Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-09
Updated: 2020-12-09
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:01:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27975510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OneCoffeeMug/pseuds/OneCoffeeMug
Series: FFXIV Drabbles, One Shots, and the like [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2048966
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	Physick

Thick clouds of dust blanket the air, that particularly electric smell she’s come to relate to battlefields where magic has been used and abused sends unpleasant shivers across her skin. Beneath her the land passes by in leaps and bounds as Petrichor carries her from one spot of the battlefield to the next.

She is so, so incredibly glad that she managed to get this particular iteration of her Topaz Carbuncle up and functional. The entire thing about that particular brand of Carbuncles is that they’re defenders, meat walls. Why not make that literal? Well, she learned that to have a Carbuncle the size of a draft chocobo one needs a particularly massive foci. The topaz she used for this was twelvesdamned expensive, but so worth it.

Mumugo hears the blast of gunfire a split second before the shell misses her by ilms. She jumps, lands, rolls, all in one practiced motion while her Carbuncle rushes towards their aggressor, some unfortunate garlean soldier who will soon learn that fighting a Carbuncle is quite the futile endeavor.

It’s a few yalms away from her that her target is. Even in all of this mess, Petrichor’s nose for finding hurt people is a twelvessend. She’s never been good at fighting, she knows her basics: Ruin, Bio, Miasma, and how to apply them to a good degree of effectiveness. All of that, however, pales to how much better she is at healing people. She would’ve been a Conjurer ere she not so absolutely horrible at Conjury, or that she couldn’t care much about the whole traditions thing.

Arcanima it was, then. Physick has a reputation, especially around veteran Arcanists and Summoners, as being an absolute piss poor spell, but most of them are just using the standard spell you’ll find in every Arcanima 101 book. Decent, good, even, at times, but nothing spectacular.

When it’s afforded an expanded geometric array and clothing specifically enchanted for healers, on the other hand, the spell can truly shine.

She retrieves her grimoire, opening it with a practiced motion, the page with Physick’s array stares at her, just begging to be used. The soft blue glow of the spell surrounds her hand just as she crouches down near her fallen comrade. The uniform they wear is almost indiscernible, dirt and caked blood hides it’s colors so thoroughly that it’s only by the insignia on the soldier - a male hyur, midlander, early thirties, her brain informs her - that she learns he is part of the Immortal Flames. Why, oh why, is this man here when he should be with his Company and not amidst the territory the Maelstrom was ordered to defend escapes her, but he’s hurt and she doesn’t have the time to think about such things.

Physick does it’s job. Wounds around the man’s body begin closing with astonishing speed, his breathing evens out and a semblance of color seems to return to his skin. She hopes, for his sake mostly, that he doesn’t have any bullets inside his body - never fun to take those out of a recently healed wound - and that he doesn’t trash around once he wakes up, would be a right sorry mess to reopen the wounds she’s just finished closing.

The man, thankfully, doesn’t move much once he comes to. There’s a sharp intake of air, eyes popping wide open and searching frantically around him, finally finding her face and staring at her for what feels like an eternity.

“No talking now, you’ve to conserve your strengths” the lalafell says, holding her hand - the spell ends - and motions at him. “Stay put, I’ll cast Teleport, there’ll be a pulling sensation around your chest, let it pull you.”

She doesn’t let the man answer her. She feels the aether around her coalesce, the soft glow of the spell enveloping her and the man both, and just a moment before the spell goes off, she feels it envelop Petrichor as well. As the spell is cast, she feels her body be pulled through space, the sensation of being stretched out between two distant points is familiar to her by now, and then she is unceremoniously dumped a few yalms away from a jerry-rigged Aetherite, it’s soft blue glow contrasting heavily with the not-so-soft red that bathes the entire landscape.

Medics, proper ones and not just folks who know how to cast one or two healing spells, are quick to arrive at the scene. They take the man from her, barely giving her a nod of acknowledgement as she gets up. To her side stands her Carbuncle, his face and front paws smeared in blood and dirt, his nose already sniffing the air, searching for someone else who may be in need.

She mounts him and off they once more go, glittering topaz cutting a line against the blood red skies of Carteneau.


End file.
